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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23924914">Day and Night</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkchubbiebunnie/pseuds/pinkchubbiebunnie'>pinkchubbiebunnie</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Walking Dead (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Blood, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Prison (Walking Dead), Season/Series 04, Stitches, Violence, killing animals for for food, stitches for medical purposes</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-04-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-02 21:15:51</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23924914</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/pinkchubbiebunnie/pseuds/pinkchubbiebunnie</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>He laid dying in the woods when an angel came to him. The best death he could expect in this fucked up world. Only it wasn’t death - it was life you brought. His life you saved. Offering you a chance at a family, at a better life… it was the least he could do in return. Fluff and Angst. Daryl Dixon x Reader. Set during Season 4.</p><p>(Cross-posted on Tumblr.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Daryl Dixon/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>80</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Day and Night</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is a repost of one of my old fics from a long time ago. One that I have actually been wanting to post for a really long time because even though it’s like really simple and probably way too fluffy, I’m really proud of it. Whenever I watch TWD, my brain spawns like seven million ideas for fics, and this is just one of them that actually came to fruition. It is directly inspired by the episode in S2 where he accidentally shoots himself in the shoulder with the bow after falling off the horse, but I am a sucker for the prison era (like everyone else) so it is set during S3/S4. I also just fucking love the aesthetic contrast of Daryl falling in love with/having a girlfriend who is very hippie, wears a lot of white (super impractical for the apocalypse, but this is MY FIC), wears flowers in her hair, and she’s like the definition of soft and breezy and angelic in contrast to him. Sorry if that’s not your style, I just have visions for this kind of stuff. Anyway - totally random repost cause I realized I don't have all my fics on ao3 and I wanna get them all up eventually. Hope you enjoy if you are rereading it, and that you enjoy it a lot if you are reading it for the first time. -Tanisha&lt;3</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The woods were quiet, calm, peaceful. No walkers moaning and rattling the fences as they mindlessly and dully charged against the chain-link, no people wandering out of bed in the middle of the night because hell, who can get a peaceful sleep these days, even if it is behind thick, concrete walls; no Judith wailing for a 3am feeding (because as much as he loved that kid, she had a habit of crying at the most inconvenient times). It was just the rustle of the breeze through the branches, the sounds of small animals off in the distance, the creek flowing steadily, uninterrupted.</p><p>Nature at its finest – just the way Daryl liked it.</p><p>He looked down at the leaves carefully, the way they were scattered, footprints, the smallest indentations in the mud to indicate that what he was looking for had come through here. He followed the path, concentration high and internal chaos low. He was tracking a doe he spotted grazing just beneath the ‘<em>Hitchhikers May Be Escaping Inmates</em>’ sign, and had followed all the way out past the other side of the creek, but hadn’t managed to get close enough to shoot yet.</p><p>Any moment now, though – he would catch her, put a quick arrow through her side and everyone would be eating good tonight.</p><p>But of course, nothing in this world went to plan anymore.</p><p>He came around through a thick patch of trees, catching a small glimpse of the doe and then slowly creeping around to see her whole. He had a clear shot from here, broadside, he couldn’t miss it. He raised his crossbow, taking a moment of concentration, never being too cocky. Before he could pull the trigger, something off in the distance, a rushed set of footsteps – Daryl took a close listen – running, human, definitely not walker, startled the doe, and in a moment, she was gone.</p><p>“Fuck,” he cursed to himself as he lowered his bow. “There goes dinner.”</p><p>At that point he would have liked to just turn around and head back to the road, where he had parked his bike, so he could head back home. The first traces of dusk were coming, meaning it really wouldn’t be long before nightfall. And he didn’t want to get caught out in the middle of the woods, in the middle of the night. Like being caught with his pants down. <em>But</em> he was curious about those footsteps – why someone was cowering through these woods in such a hurry. If they needed help; if he should bring them back to the prison with him.</p><p>He started toward the sound, and it only took a few of his own steps before a body emerged from the trees in front of him. It was a man – correction: a pretty young kid, maybe a teenager, pretty dirty, clothes worn, looking no different than someone who had been living outside, going from place to place for a while now. He had a backpack on, a pistol poised in his hand; which he immediately raised at Daryl when he spotted the hunter between the trees.</p><p>Daryl reacted quickly, sensibly, shucking the strap of his crossbow off his shoulder and letting it fall onto the ground. Appearing unarmed might be the difference for this kid. But Daryl couldn’t help feeling unsettled by the sweat on his brow and the crazed look in his eye.</p><p>“Hey kid, it’s alright,” he spoke first, voice rough from having been quiet all day, trying to reassure this stranger that he wasn’t a threat. “You can put ‘ur gun down.”</p><p>The kid was panting, nervous, eyes jetting around unsteadily; like he was looking for something that wasn’t going to come.</p><p>“Are you a dead man?” He panted out, breathless, terrified – sounding quite crazy, but honestly who wasn’t a little bit crazy these days?</p><p>Daryl shook his head.</p><p>“No. No, I ain’t bit or nothin’.” He responded quickly, trying to be calm, cool, reassuring. “Look, kid, how long you been out here? When’s the last time you had some water? Dehydration can mess with…”</p><p>“You’re a liar!” The kid was screaming now. Whatever internal turmoil he was facing… it was clearly bigger than dehydration. “Everybody is a dead man! Everybody is a liar!”</p><p>Daryl was slowly, surely making a move for the gun tucked into the back of his belt, when this strange, poor kid pulled the trigger. The bullet hit him somewhere on his torso, knocking him down instantly. He listened to the footsteps of the stranger running away again, and raised a shaking hand up to where shooting waves of impossible pain were originating from – somewhere between his shoulder and his stomach. He was in too much pain and too numb, all at the same time, too fucked up to even know. His fingers came up with blood on them.</p><p>The blood, the smell, the yelling; it would draw walkers. He had to get up. But the more he tried to force himself up, it seemed, the heavier his body felt. He was bleeding. Getting dizzier. Warmth pouring out of his body and gathering wet and heavy onto his skin, soaking into his clothes. He tried pressing his fingers into the wound, tried to plug the hole; but they soon became numb.</p><p>His eyelids were getting heavier. No. He had to stay awake.</p><p>Someone would come for him, someone would find him.</p><p>His blinks were getting longer, and longer.</p><p>He tried reaching for the gun in his belt again. Maybe he could put one through his own temple before it was too late. But his body was too heavy sitting on the cold metal, his skin growing just as cold as the steel, and he couldn’t even get his arm close to it.</p><p>The last thing he prayed for, hoping for once in his life that any sort of God was real, was that he would get caught on some sort of tree, or branch. Get sunk in the swap maybe. He just prayed to anybody that was listening that he wouldn’t make it to that fucking fence once he – or the shell of him, was up again. The last thing in the world he wanted was for Rick, or Carol, or fuck… Carl to have to look out there and see him like that.</p><p><em>Please, God.</em> He thought. <em>Let it be Michonne who cuts me down. She can handle it. She’ll do it quick.</em></p><p>His eyelids were closed more than open now. Too heavy. His breath coming out in shallow wheezes.</p><p>
  <em>Let it be some stranger.</em>
</p><p>The last few blinks, in his dizzy vision, the last thing he saw distinct through the trees – a beautiful woman in a white dress?</p><p>Fuck. He really was dead this time.</p><p>…</p><p>Daryl was too groggy to be shocked when he actually woke up.</p><p>He came around slowly, he senses waking one at a time. First thing, he felt pinching, tugging at his skin. A small stinging at his shoulder right at the surface. Then he heard singing; a beautiful, distance voice past the low hum in his ears that was quietly singing a song he didn’t know. The smell of – of – god what was that? The smell of something sweet. He couldn’t remember the last time he actually smelled something good; instead of a rotting corpse, or stale concrete, dust-infused air.</p><p>He could very well be dead.</p><p>Might as well open his eyes and see.</p><p>His eyelids were still heavy, <em>so</em> heavy. He groaned, squeezing them together before he tried to open them again.</p><p>“Oh hey,” the melodic voice stopped singing and called to him, reaching through the distant fog he was experiencing and grabbing a hold of him. “I’m glad to see you’re waking up,”</p><p>“Wha – what?” He was trying to ask ‘what happened?’ or maybe even ‘where am I?’, but all he was able to form were idiotic sounding mumbles, blinking his heavy eyes open and blinding himself with that first taste of light.</p><p>You hushed him, gently placing your hands on his chest where he was stirring, weakly trying to get up, and pushed him back down onto the flat, hard surface he was laying on.</p><p>“Shh. It’s okay. You’re safe now.” You reassured him, looking over his face, watching as his attention was drawn to you. “What’s your name?” It was an obvious thing to ask, to want to ask. But he sat for a few moments without reply.</p><p>His eyes were still glassy, he was still gone, but coming back slowly. “You’re lucky,” you continued. “The shot was through-n-through. Very clean exit wound. I didn’t have to go digging around in there for fragments or anything,”</p><p>He made a grunt, another attempt at talking, but it ended in a coughing sputter. His throat was dried out, and now he was noticing that hell of a pain in his shoulder again. He watched you carefully as you left his side, hair dancing behind you as you walked, and poured him a glass of water at what he soon saw was a very residential-looking kitchen counter before you carefully carried it back to where he laid.</p><p>You floated, didn’t walk, still wearing that white dress he had seen you in when he thought you were nothing more than a hallucination (he still couldn’t quite be sure), with small braids and flowers in your hair. Who the hell were you? Looking like some – some chick from a storybook? All clean and sweet-smelling and – and putting a straw to his lips so that he could take a drink now.</p><p>“I think it broke your collarbone, though. Fractured it, at least. That’s why you passed out: from the pain.” You added onto what you were saying before as Daryl gulped down the water, eager to wet his mouth enough so that he could actually talk to you.</p><p>Just before he dropped the straw from his lips, you reached over, your eyes shifting from his wound to his face, looking down at him with sympathy soaked in your pupils, and used gentle fingers to brush his hair from his face.</p><p>He wanted to flinch away from the touch, flick your hand away, <em>run</em>. But he was paralyzed by that look in your eyes – by the pure calmness on your face. By being cared for. The water slipped down his throat the wrong way in his distraction and he found himself sputtering again; you rubbed his chest in another act of caring, soothing away his cough, sending tingles all through his body.</p><p>Every fiber of his being was telling him to get away <em>now</em>.</p><p>“Where’s my bow?” He managed out lowly, trying to get up again as he turned his head, scanning the room for any signs of that precious tool.</p><p>You forced him down again, making him grunt in frustration.</p><p>“I haven’t even finished sewing you up yet,” you picked up the needle where you had gently laid it down, and before he could argue, gently sunk it back into his skin, making another stitch to help close the wound.</p><p>He winced slightly; it, of course, wasn’t the worst pain he’s ever felt, but it wasn’t pleasant.</p><p>“Why?” He grumbled out quietly.</p><p>You were heavily concentrated on your work, dainty and careful, on the last few stitches. You almost didn’t hear him at all.</p><p>“What?”</p><p>“Why?” He repeated himself; staring up at the ceiling, eyes tracing the odd, swirling pattern imprinted on the tiles. “Why not jus’ leave me there?”</p><p>It put a twist in your stomach that he even had to ask that.</p><p>But of course, the walking dead weren’t the only thing rotting in this world anymore. People, human beings, their morals – people would rather just put a bullet in your head now and leave you. If they even had a bullet to waste.</p><p>But you couldn’t handle that. You had the resources, the time, two feet and a heartbeat, so you weren’t just going to leave him there to bleed out.</p><p>“You needed my help.” You answered simply. “And I am capable of giving it,” you concentrated on tying a knot in the thread, ensuring that all your hard work wouldn’t just come undone.</p><p>“Yeah, but, I coulda been a bandit. Or – or a rapist. I coulda put a bullet in ‘ur head the minute I woke up,” Daryl wasn’t sure why he was making so many arguments against himself. Maybe it was because you seemed so pure, so naive. Because something as beautiful, as wonderful as you shouldn’t have survived in this world for so long. It was either dumb luck or coincidence or something – and swelling up in his chest was the overwhelming feeling that he wanted to protect you.</p><p>“You got shot because you were trying to help that guy.” You played it off easily as you stood again, walking back to the counter to gather something else. “I knew you couldn’t have been that bad. And besides, I only left that gun in your belt to make<em> you</em> feel better.”</p><p>Daryl chuckled. A good, genuine laugh because of you. And then mildly regretted it because it shook his sore shoulder.</p><p>You came back with more gauze and another suture, placing them down on the table gently.</p><p>“Now turn over, I have to get the other side.”</p><p>Daryl didn’t move. He was quite hesitant of this – not wanting you to see the array of scars on his back, not wanting the awkwardness of having to explain them. You waited patiently, standing there. The more he looked at your angelic face, the more that first jolt in his stomach seemed to go away. He felt, oddly enough, like he could trust you. Like you wouldn’t just laugh in his face if he cried that he was pathetic and his Daddy used to beat him – that you would be understanding and well… sweet.</p><p>He started to turn over, feeling the full weight of his body, and you disappeared again, off into another room, coming back in a moment with a pillow for him to rest his head on when he got settled onto his stomach on (what Daryl quickly realized was) the kitchen table.</p><p>It stung like a bitch when you had to clean the wound, and hearing him hiss and wince, you quickly engaged him in conversation once more.</p><p>“So… are you gonna tell me your name?” He couldn’t answer the question before, so you tried again.</p><p>“Daryl,” He responded easily. “Dixon.”</p><p>“Very fitting for a man in a leather vest,” the thought left your lips, making Daryl chuckle deep in his chest. “I’m (Y/N).”</p><p>“Fittin’ name for a pretty girl in a white dress,” this thought slipped easily from his lips.</p><p>You felt a blush creep up over your neck, and tried to ignore it.</p><p>“What were you doing out in the woods in the first place?” It was a gentle question, continuing the conversation along, not meant to be an interrogation of any kind.</p><p>“I could ask you the same thing,” Daryl quickly got defensive, out of instinct, regretting his harsh-sounding words as they left his mouth.</p><p>“There’s a patch of wild mushrooms that grows there,” you answered him, still calm, still gentle. “Fresh produce is pretty hard to come by these days so it’s a nice treat to have for a meal. I was picking some when I heard that guy shouting at you.”</p><p>“Oh,” Daryl said dully. Of course – like mother nature for god’s sake. He was surprised you hadn’t said you were out there picking flowers or something.</p><p>“What about you?”</p><p>Daryl tried to ignore that first needle poke into his skin, and answered you instead.</p><p>“Trackin’ this doe from off the highway. I woulda had her too if it wouldn’t for that stupid kid,” he explained honestly. Fresh meat was something he valued greatly these days. Not having to eat out of a can, and being able to provide a good meal for his family, doing his part.</p><p><em>His family</em> – everyone must be worried sick by now, wondering where he is. That is, if they even noticed him gone.</p><p>“So you’re a hunter?” You inquired.</p><p>“Yeah. Since I was a kid,” he felt comfortable opening up to you. When he let himself. It was foreign for him to open up to anyone – even Rick, Carol. But for some reason, it felt nice to tell you things about himself. “Practically lived in the woods my whole life,”</p><p>“That’s good.” You commented, still working on his wound carefully. “That kind of skill set, that’s invaluable now.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>Maybe that was it. Maybe that’s all he way to anyone these days – a skill set.</p><p>He fell into a tortured silence as you finished up, again, tying the knot with care and snipping it with a little pair of scissors.</p><p>“There you go,” You said quietly.</p><p>“Thank you,” Daryl couldn’t help but say it as he sat up, feeling a plague of dizziness befall him again when his torso was upright. “Anybody else woulda jus’ left me there. And tell you the truth, I thought I was dead. Even when you did come rushin’ over,”</p><p>“You thought you were dead?” You prodded this statement as you packed up your medical supplies.</p><p>“Well not everyone goes around wearin’ white clothes these days, lookin’ like some sorta… saint.” He wasn’t afraid to say what he thought it; that you were some kind of angel greeting him, there to take him… wherever he was supposed to go. (He shouldn’t think it was heaven, not after all the things he’s done.)</p><p>You giggled, light, airy, your laugh filling the air like sweet music. The sound wrapped around Daryl’s heart, squeezed it, and ringing it free of some of the sadness he always carried with him. It made him feel just a little bit lighter.  </p><p>“I’ll take that as another compliment. Not every girl gets the praise of being called angelic,” you almost felt yourself blushing. As a distraction, you found Daryl’s shirt on the floor, which you had thrown there in haste to get to his wound and stop the bleeding when you brought him inside the house. “Besides, why does everyone have to wear black, anyway?”</p><p>The question came easily as your eyes lingered on the dark tank top, raking over the dried blood and tear where the bullet had done through it.</p><p>“Easier to get the blood stains out,” He made a snarky remark, taking the clothing from you as you offered it to him. He went to pull it on over his head with both hands, groaning in pain, almost forgetting about the broken bone he likely had.</p><p>You rushed to help him, being met with no resistance. “I’m sure that’s your reason, Mister Badass Hunter Motorcycle Man,” the joke came easily, a distraction from the fact that you had to help him still.</p><p>He was a badass, that was clear to you. So accepting help from a sweet ‘little’ girl obviously didn’t come very easily to him. Accepting help from anyone probably didn’t come easily to him.</p><p>“How’d you know about my bike?” He wondered out loud.</p><p>“Lucky guess.”</p><p>You both chuckled at this, the noise soon fading off as he rushed off the table into a standing position and stumbled, still dizzy, having lost a fair amount of blood and still in a lot of pain dragging his arm.</p><p>“You really should be in a sling,” you commented, concern coming through heavy in your voice.</p><p>He wasn’t paying too much attention, having spotted his precious crossbow propped in the corner of the kitchen. He took an unsteady step for it, grabbed it, and then appeared to be looking for the door.</p><p>“You can’t leave now.” You were going from simply weighing in to straight telling. “It’s almost dark out. And you need to rest, you lost so much blood. You need to eat something,”</p><p>He spotted his vest hanging off the back of one of the kitchen chairs and gathered it up, attempting, struggling to put it on.</p><p>“What you done for me has been real kind, and I appreciate it,” he gritted out in pain, “but I need to get back to my people.”</p><p>The last thing he needed was for Rick, or Carol, or Glenn or Maggie to go off into the woods looking for him and for something bad to happen to them. Or even for them to get turned around and not be able to find their way back. They never liked to admit, but most of them had the sense of direction of a stunned racoon.</p><p>“I’m sure your people wouldn’t appreciate if I let you go out into the woods and pass out because you didn’t eat, or if I let you get attacked because you tried to use your bow with a bum arm,” you had your arms folded over, staring at him with wide, disappointed eyes. As much of a woman as he had ever seen.</p><p>But you had a point.</p><p>Daryl stayed silent for another moment, so you continued.</p><p>“And I didn’t use up all my mushrooms making a nice dinner so that you could run away without eating any,”</p><p>And with just that, the oven timer dinged.</p><p>…</p><p>Daryl let you put him in a make-shift sling before you both sat down to dinner. The ripped up floral sheet was a juxtaposition to all his black, wrapped around his neck and tied, holding his arm up to his body tight so that the extra weight dragging wouldn’t aggravate his bone.</p><p>He felt strange having you serve him. Having to just sit and watch as you set the table, as you spread out a table cloth, lit candles on tall candle holders – so the two of you wouldn’t have to eat in the dark, put down glasses and a pitcher of water, and came back out into the dining room with a small roaster, placing it down onto the table to reveal something that could have easily been the picture in a cook book. A whole chicken, browned all over, juicy, with those mushrooms you had talked about and some small potatoes. Daryl felt his stomach growl.</p><p>“You drink?” You inquired as you fixed the roaster into the middle of the table, using a dishcloth to guard your hands from the heat.</p><p>You were offering him alcohol? “Hell yeah.”</p><p>You giggled at his enthusiasm, and disappeared into the other room once again. In your absence, he could simply sit no longer. He rose from his chair and went looking for a knife to carve up the wonderful meal you had to serve him.</p><p>When he came back, you were trying to uncork a bottle of wine with little success.</p><p>“Wine?” He placed the knife down, taking the bottle from you and slipping the cork out.</p><p>“And wine glasses,” you pointed out, gesturing to the two clean, long-stemmed glasses you had brought in from the china cabinet.</p><p>“Shit,” he exclaimed. “This the nicest dinner I had in a long time,”</p><p>“Enjoy it.” You poured the wine, enjoying the chugging sound the bottle made. “I’ve been debating on whether or not to kill one of my chickens for a while now, and having another person to feed seemed to be the perfect excuse.”</p><p>You both sat down, serving up the food as you continued to talk.</p><p>“You here all alone?” He asked as the thought came to his mind.</p><p>“Yeah,” the obvious answer. “I’ve been by myself… for a long time.” It felt so easy to talk around him, so natural to let yourself show. “It’s actually pretty nice having someone to talk to now,”</p><p>“Seems like you been doin’ pretty good on ‘ur own,” He observed. It was no lie – the house was beautiful, with no traces of what the outside world had to show, at least not from what he had seen of it. It looked and felt like any normal residential house would; even before the turn. And the chicken – <em>chickens</em>, apparently. You had skills enough to survive and to make a meal so good it made him regret every canned thing he had eaten in the past couple of months.</p><p>You shrugged. “You could say that.” You chewed slowly. “There is a point where you start to miss people, though. Where you just… get lonely.”</p><p>“’Ur not alone anymore,” he sipped the wine, chased his odd attempt at flirting with alcohol. Was it even flirting if these were just the words that came most natural, felt most perfect in the moment to say to you?</p><p>“You said you have people.” You pointed out. “That means you have someone to get back to. You can stay the night… but you’ll leave in the morning and I’ll be alone again.”</p><p>The realization hung heavy over your head, like an anvil dangling on a string. It made your throat tight, and you drank too.</p><p>A realization hit Daryl, too, in this moment. A very different one.</p><p>“How many walkers you killed?” He asked without a second thought.</p><p>“Walkers?”</p><p>“The dead ones,” He explained.</p><p>“Oh. Well, you can’t really kill something that’s already dead.” You stabbed a potato with your fork. “But… a lot of them. Probably… at least a hundred by this point. I’ve had to protect my property, protect myself.” You put it into your mouth slowly. “At one point I did have people of my own to protect, too,”</p><p>That was something you hadn’t thought about in a long time.</p><p>Daryl felt the air thicken, make it hard to swallow. More wine.</p><p>“How many people you killed?” This was a heavier question, one that tasted bitter on his tongue.</p><p>You were an angel. Not just by looks – anyone else would have left him out there for the worms. Would have been a little more merciful and put a bullet in his head. It was a miracle that you cared as much to drag his ass all the way back to your home, care for him, stitch him up, give him a meal.</p><p>It felt so strange asking someone like you if you had ever taken a life before.</p><p>You looked at him with something deep in your eyes – maybe it was guilt.</p><p>“I – I don’t know if this counts, but… the woman who owned this house… when I came across her, she was in pretty bad shape.” You weren’t looking at Daryl anymore, eyes wandering off, going back to that time. Daryl simply nodded. “She’d had a stroke, before this whole thing started, and needed long term care. The entire left side of her body was numb. And her kids, when they realized the world had gone to shit… they just took off on her.”</p><p>“Assholes,” Daryl cursed under his breath. His parents had truly never done shit for him, but he could never turn his back on blood.</p><p>“When I came in the house, she was lying in the middle of the floor – had collapsed trying to get to the bathroom. There was plenty of food here, the chickens, a well, a wood stove. It’s… paradise. And she said I was welcome here for as long as I wanted, as long as I could care for her,” you felt your throat tightening up slightly. With your entire family gone, with everyone you knew either dead or presumed dead, that woman had been the closest thing you had to family in a long time.</p><p>Daryl saw it on your face, too. The loss. It made him ache for you. It made him want to hold you. But he simply clutched onto his fork tighter.</p><p>“And I did. She really wasn’t that much trouble. But eventually her medication ran out. And I was always looking around for more, but there’s only so many pharmacies in the area… only so many pills. And she had another stroke. I tried to do everything I could. I tried so hard.” Just remembering it; how the night had felt so long, wondering if she would survive or not. Tears welled up in your eyes. “I think it may have caused a bleed in her brain, because it was only a day or two after that, and…”</p><p>You couldn’t really bring yourself to say it. A tear streaked down your face now, hot, wet, unrestricted. You hated crying.</p><p>“I had to – um – put my knife through her temple. Just to make sure. But she hadn’t come back yet. So I don’t know, if you would count that, as…” You trailed off, voice cutting out with how tight your throat was. You had to breathe deeply, trying to keep yourself from full-out weeping.</p><p>Daryl ached for you. He hurt, hard, deep in his chest.</p><p>It was instinct, more than anything, when he reached his good arm across the table and gently grasped your hand on the table cloth.</p><p>“That don’ count.” He wanted nothing more than to reassure you, than to make sure that you knew what you had done was not wrong. “You done right by her. ‘N tha’s all you did,”</p><p>You stared across at him with your tear glassed eyes, and he had to do something, he had to say more words, he had to comfort you – he had to <em>save</em> you.</p><p>“Listen, a nice house don’ mean shit when you ain’t got no family in it,” he realized now that the frilly table cloth, the pretty plates, the wine glasses, it was all hallow. All nothing but emptiness and loneliness. A dusty old prison was a real home now – because of the people who made it home. Judith wailing and Beth singing and Carol whispering to the kids about proper knife technique when she thinks no one’s listening. “You outta come back with me. Be with my people. You ain’t gotta be lonely out here no more,”</p><p>“And what makes you think your people will want me?” The tiny shadows of doubt you held were showing through, but you clasped Daryl’s hand back, hard, wanting to be sure; wanting him to be sure.</p><p>“They will want you.” He was sure. “I do.”  </p>
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